On Immigration and Social Security

There are two very big issues on America's plate in 2013; A) what to do with Social Security (SS) , and B) immigration. For the most part, these two topics are uniquely different. There is one important area where they lap over - money.

SS maintains an account called the Earnings Suspense File (ESF). This is account used for booking money that comes into SS from improper SS ID# (SSNs). Credits to ESF can arise from administrative errors. It's easy to imagine how some one transposes a few digits on the SSN, and the computers at SS recognizes the mistake. Until the error is fixed, the money from payroll taxes on that SSN is suspended in the ESF.

The ESF is not just an account where errors are trapped and later reconciled. It is a doghouse account that has collected well over a hundred billion dollars over the past decade. The vast majority of the money in the ESF comes from workers who are using an illegal SSN.

This site produced the following report on the Earnings Suspense File (ESF) at SS:

There is no data after 2010 on the ESF account. I made some conservative assumption for 2011/12, and adjusted it for interest earned starting from 2001. The P&I totals over the past eleven years come to $138 billion for SS and $33B for Medicare.That ain't hay; for SS it means that 5.3% of the entire SS Trust Fund is ill gotten gains, for Medicare the contribution from illegal workers is equal to 8+% of its Trust Fund.

From 2001 through 2012 the total amount of wages paid to undocumented workers comes to just shy of $900 Billion. Wow! The annual average is $75B. Today, the average documented worker earns $53K a year, this means that 1,400,000 jobs (100+K a month!) might otherwise go to documented workers.

Unemployment is 7.8%. A more desirable level would be 5.5%. To achieve this, approximately 4mm jobs are needed. There are 7+m jobs being filled by undocumented workers today.

It's tempting to look at these comparisons and reach a conclusion that America could move the needle on unemployment by eliminating undocumented workers. As a practical matter I don't think that is possible, nor would it be desirable.

This a perplexing problem, and I don't know what to do about it. However, "Fixing" the problem that exists is something that has to be done. Consider the ESF data:

The obvious conclusion from the chart is that when the US economy is strong, illegal workers come. When the economy weakens, the undocumented workers leave. There are signs that the long recession in housing is over. If that is to be the case, then the country can expect a new wave of undocumented workers to come with the recovery.

Given the split that exists between conservatives and liberals on all issues today, it would seem unlikely that anything can be done to make this "right". That would be a stupid result, there is a hell of a lot riding on the outcome.

Note:

If an illegal worker obtains a forged SSN, and uses it to obtain work in the US, then that illegal worker will be entitled to receive SS benefits on exactly the same terms as a legal worker. The only difference is that the illegal worker must receive their SS payments in a bank account outside of the country. What a system!

hmmm...illegal workers are employed by people who break the law and whose illegal wages are docked and credited to a record of illegal SSN's.

legally? unemployed people draw legal benefits because they cannot find work in legal companies.

so this means that people accept that illegal work for illegal comapnies to keep unemployed people on benefits and not working for companies that operate legally

am i the only one who sees this as part of the sick circle jerk that goes for the stupidity and corruption of this economy?

here's a clue...go and throw out the illegal workers by tracing the payments into the SS scheme, then close down the illegal companies that employ them and fine the individuals who emply illegal workers the total of the money they have "saved" by putting the unemployed out of work. that is the total of the benefits drawn down by the average unemployed person PLUS the wages paid to the illegal worker.

Most illegal aliens make money off our government tax system, that's why they file in the millions, high interest loans on their "tax returns" are H&R Block's single largest revenue source-and the illegals don't care its "free money". Walmart does well too as well as the auto makers when "tax refund time" comes.

Ask yourself this, "Did illegals cause the economic problems and lowering of opportunities for a comfortable life?" No! But the ones that did, the government and their cronies, are the ones telling you to focus on "Jose" and not them.

Keep the "problem" of illegals on your list, but lets first deal with these lying, stealing, killing, rights-violating psychopaths first.

"This a perplexing problem, and I don't know what to do about it. However, "Fixing" the problem that exists is something that has to be done."

Why this compulsion for always 'doing something' to 'fix the problem'? And, what is the problem, anyway? If anyone has to take the short end of the stick, it will be the beneficiaries of gains illegally gotten. You worry too much----get some pills or something!

All of this fixing the problem by 'doing something seems to me, to have been our UN-DOING; How about doing not-a-thing for a change?

And let the bankers and politicians suck empty egg shells instead of the cream off the top

Besides----who cares about ss payments from a third work country with a dead currency and a dead habitat? om

The meat packing industry is a case in point. Meat packers locate their facilities in remote areas in order to avoid as much scrutiny as possible by government oversight.

Meat packers gladly employ illegals because they are hard working, have no recourse when abused and injured and aid in driving down wages for all meat packing workers.

Additionally, illegals will willingly do jobs that citizens will not do such as working the slippery killing floors where danger lurks everywhere, meat cutting which, due to required speed causes hand and finger paralysis quickly because of repetitive motion and handling animals who kick, bite and are diseased in many cases.

Illegals pay whatever taxes are removed from their checks so they also provide government funds.

The US citizen is fed lines of propaganga about illegal immigrants. Do some independent research.

The brown skinned men go to the USA as undocumted workers, so that they can send money home to support their families.

The USgov takes the social security payment and spends it on bombing the brown skinned families. And Bruce worries if he will ever be able to collect monthly annuity payments from the system.

Full disclosure: I recieve a few thousand dollars every month from SSA, which I call 'eagle shit' and for which my Swiss wife does not understand. Since she is married to me, she recieves a few thousand also; despite the fact that she has never visited the US, nor obviously worked there.

We take the USD and donate it to charities in Cambodia and Laos, who are caring for victims of US genocide programs. We label it ''blood money.'

h, yes, you are the eager young intellectual out to battle my demons of smug fuzzy-headedness. Well, I don't play that game. It bores me. I am not going to argue with you, because I already know what arguments can and cannot be knocked down. As Kant pointed out long ago, no metaphysical axiom can be proven to be necessary. Meaning, by its very nature, implies a metaphysical and teleological structure that is rooted in assumptions beyond mere matter. That is to say, you will be able to very easily poke holes in this presentation of the meaning of life, by definition. It wouldn't be the meaning of life if it were logically unassailable.

The only unassailable arguments these days are materialism and pure philosophical agnosticism. If you are dealing with someone who believes that the material world exists, you can win every argument by having the position that all that exists are atoms and molecules bouncing randomly around and that there is no moral or philosophical principle that can be proven to be true, or even to have any meaning. Life is completely pointless on a philosophical level, but if you want to continue filling your belly just for the sheer bloody- mindedness of it, Darwin pointed out the basic game plan and Ayn Rand filled in the egotistical details. Have at it.

If you have someone who is more clever and knows to argue that the material world may not exist, then there are not only no moral or philosophical principles that can be proven to exist, but indeed, there are no scientific principles that can be proven to exist either. You have sunken into solipsism, which of course can't be proven either, leaving you with no provable statements whatsoever. As before of course, if you wish to continue filling your non-existent belly with insubstantial morsels, there are plenty of other non-existent people who will apparently play that game with what I will, for argument's sake, call you. So good luck, if there were such a thing.

Clearly stated and accurate, etresoi, and I similarly no longer wade in those bogs. But the one point worth remembering, IMO, is the eternal arrogance of each moment in history. So, while your statement "The only unassailable arguments these days..." is correct, it could be just as well stated as "The only currently fashionable arguments these days...".

The next age will look down it's nose at our "unassailable arguments" just as much as we look down at the thoughts of even our esteemed thinkers of the past.

"If you have someone who is more clever and knows to argue that the material world may not exist, then there are not only no moral or philosophical principles that can be proven to exist, but indeed, there are no scientific principles that can be proven to exist either."

Vous y voila!

(Hope you don't expect a lot of people to get it, though...)

_____________

Also, for argument's sake, it may be supposed that such things as "luck" is really all there is.

If the Universe were Holographic, for example, it is only the inter-connection of our shared experiences (granted, if that were even true...) that actually exists because, assuming that the shared experiences are indeed real, it would be the only thing that is real.

So love, luck, hate, mistrust...all those things are what matters in our experience and therefore to the Universe itself. So you may say that luck could be just another hand-me-down illusion but I would argue that it is real enough.

In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect's name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science.

Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart.

Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein's long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Since traveling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away Aspect's findings. But it has inspired others to offer even more radical explanations.

University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram

To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three-dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser. To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film. When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.

The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.

The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts. A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made, we will only get smaller wholes.

This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect's discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion. He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something.

To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the following illustration. Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other directed at its side. As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different. But as you continue to watch the two fish, you will eventually become aware that there is a certain relationship between them. When one turns, the other also makes a slightly different but corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces toward the side. If you remain unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might even conclude that the fish must be instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is clearly not the case.

This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect's experiment. According to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection between subatomic particles is really telling us that there is a deeper level of reality we are not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we are seeing only a portion of their reality. Such particles are not separate "parts", but facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and indivisible as the previously mentioned rose. And since everything in physical reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the universe is itself a projection, ahologram.

In addition to its phantomlike nature, such a universe would possess other rather startling features. If the apparent separateness of subatomic particles is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected. The electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain are connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers in the sky. Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorize and pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena of the universe, all apportionments are of necessity artificial and all of nature is ultimately a seamless web.

Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might lie hidden in the superhologram, he does venture to say that we have no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or as he puts it, perhaps the superholographic level of reality is a "mere stage" beyond which lies "an infinity of further development".

Bohm is not the only researcher who has found evidence that the universe is a hologram. Working independently in the field of brain research, Stanford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic nature of reality. Pribram was drawn to the holographic model by the puzzle of how and where memories are stored in the brain. For decades numerous studies have shown that rather than being confined to a specific location, memories are dispersed throughout the brain.

In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of memory storage.

Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram.

Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage --simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.

Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily sort back through some gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head instantly. Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross- correlated with every other piece of information--another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with every other portion, it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated system.

The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions.

Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through the senses into the inner world of our perceptions.

Bohm is not the only researcher who has found evidence that the universe is a hologram. Working independently in the field of brain research, Standford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic nature of reality.

Pribram was drawn to the holographic model by the puzzle of how and where memories are stored in the brain. For decades numerous studies have shown that rather than being confined to a specific location, memories are dispersed throughout the brain.

In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of memory storage.

Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram.

Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage--simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.

Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily sort back through ome gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head instantly.

Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross- correlated with every other piece of information--another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with evey other portion, it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated system.

The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions. Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through the senses into the inner world of our perceptions.

An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists.

Argentinian-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability.

Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.

Pribram's belief that our brains mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a frequency domain has also received a good deal of experimental support.

It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected.

Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part dependent on what are now called "cosmic frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions.

But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm's theory. For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality?

Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion.

We are really "receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency, and what we extract from this sea and transmogrify into physical reality is but one channel from many extracted out of the superhologram.

This striking new picture of reality, the synthesis of Bohm and Pribram's views, has come to be called the holographic paradigm, and although many scientists have greeted it with skepticism, it has galvanized others. A small but growing group of researchers believe it may be the most accurate model of reality science has arrived at thus far. More than that, some believe it may solve some mysteries that have never before been explainable by science and even establish the paranormal as a part of nature.

Numerous researchers, including Bohm and Pribram, have noted that many para-psychological phenomena become much more understandable in terms of the holographic paradigm.

In a universe in which individual brains are actually indivisible portions of the greater hologram and everything is infinitely interconnected, telepathy may merely be the accessing of the holographic level.

It is obviously much easier to understand how information can travel from the mind of individual 'A' to that of individual 'B' at a far distance point and helps to understand a number of unsolved puzzles in psychology. In particular, Stanislav Grof, a founder of the field of transpersonal psychology, feels the holographic paradigm offers a model for understanding many of the baffling phenomena experienced by individuals during altered states of consciousness.

Creation - Holographic Universe In the 1950s, while conducting research into the beliefs of LSD as a psychotherapeutic tool, Grof had one female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female of a species of prehistoric reptile. During the course of her hallucination, she not only gave a richly detailed description of what it felt like to be encapsuled in such a form, but noted that the portion of the male of the species's anatomy was a patch of colored scales on the side of its head.

What was startling to Grof was that although the woman had no prior knowledge about such things, a conversation with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal.

The woman's experience was not unique. During the course of his research, Grof encountered examples of patients regressing and identifying with virtually every species on the evolutionary tree (research findings which helped influence the man-into-ape scene in the movie Altered States). Moreover, he found that such experiences frequently contained obscure zoological details which turned out to be accurate.

Regressions into the animal kingdom were not the only puzzling psychological phenomena Grof encountered. He also had patients who appeared to tap into some sort of collective or racial unconscious. Individuals with little or no education suddenly gave detailed descriptions of Zoroastrian funerary practices and scenes from Hindu mythology. In other categories of experience, individuals gave persuasive accounts of out-of-body journeys, of precognitive glimpses of the future, of regressions into apparent past-life incarnations.

In later research, Grof found the same range of phenomena manifested in therapy sessions which did not involve the use of drugs. Because the common element in such experiences appeared to be the transcending of an individual's consciousness beyond the usual boundaries of ego and/or limitations of space and time, Grof called such manifestations "transpersonal experiences", and in the late '60s he helped found a branch of psychology called "transpersonal psychology" devoted entirely to their study.

Although Grof's newly founded Association of Transpersonal Psychology garnered a rapidly growing group of like-minded professionals and has become a respected branch of psychology, for years neither Grof or any of his colleagues were able to offer a mechanism for explaining the bizarre psychological phenomena they were witnessing. But that has changed with the advent of the holographic paradigm.

As Grof recently noted, if the mind is actually part of a continuum, a labyrinth that is connected not only to every other mind that exists or has existed, but to every atom, organism, and region in the vastness of space and time itself, the fact that it is able to occasionally make forays into the labyrinth and have transpersonal experiences no longer seems so strange.

The holographic prardigm also has implications for so-called hard sciences like biology. Keith Floyd, a psychologist at Virginia Intermont College, has pointed out that if the concreteness of reality is but a holographic illusion, it would no longer be true to say the brain produces consciousness. Rather, it is consciousness that creates the appearance of the brain -- as well as the body and everything else around us we interpret as physical.

Such a turnabout in the way we view biological structures has caused researchers to point out that medicine and our understanding of the healing process could also be transformed by the holographic paradigm. If the apparent physical structure of the body is but a holographic projection of consciousness, it becomes clear that each of us is much more responsible for our health than current medical wisdom allows. What we now view as miraculous remissions of disease may actually be due to changes in consciousness which in turn effect changes in the hologram of the body.

Similarly, controversial new healing techniques such as visualization may work so well because in the holographic domain of thought images are ultimately as real as "reality".

Even visions and experiences involving "non-ordinary" reality become explainable under the holographic paradigm. In his book "Gifts of Unknown Things," biologist Lyall Watson discribes his encounter with an Indonesian shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance, was able to make an entire grove of trees instantly vanish into thin air. Watson relates that as he and another astonished onlooker continued to watch the woman, she caused the trees to reappear, then "click" off again and on again several times in succession.

Although current scientific understanding is incapable of explaining such events, experiences like this become more tenable if "hard" reality is only a holographic projection.

Perhaps we agree on what is "there" or "not there" because what we call consensus reality is formulated and ratified at the level of the human unconscious at which all minds are infinitely interconnected.

If this is true, it is the most profound implication of the holographic paradigm of all, for it means that experiences such as Watson's are not commonplace only because we have not programmed our minds with the beliefs that would make them so. In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality.

What we perceive as reality is only a canvas waiting for us to draw upon it any picture we want. Anything is possible, from bending spoons with the power of the mind to the phantasmagoric events experienced by Castaneda during his encounters with the Yaqui brujo don Juan, for magic is our birthright, no more or less miraculous than our ability to compute the reality we want when we are in our dreams.

Indeed, even our most fundamental notions about reality become suspect, for in a holographic universe, as Pribram has pointed out, even random events would have to be seen as based on holographic principles and therefore determined. Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences suddenly makes sense, and everything in reality would have to be seen as a metaphor, for even the most haphazard events would express some underlying symmetry.

Whether Bohm and Pribram's holographic paradigm becomes accepted in science or dies an ignoble death remains to be seen, but it is safe to say that it has already had an influence on the thinking of many scientists. And even if it is found that the holographic model does not provide the best explanation for the instantaneous communications that seem to be passing back and forth between subatomic particles, at the very least, as noted by Basil Hiley, a physicist at Birbeck College in London, Aspect's findings "indicate that we must be prepared to consider radically new views of reality".

Consensus reality is a mass hallucination. Separateness is the most important illusion THEY try to maintain. The Matrix got it right on many levels (including meeting The Architect with his TV screens, orly)

I hope others can read this and come to the conclusion that what we think we see may not be what is really there. It is certainly worth entertaining the thought.

My research into it began several years ago when I noted that several accounts of people who have "died" and come back tell of a similar situation. They end up in what seems to be a great room and on the walls of this room are basically television monitors that are plainly flat, showing "life" as we know it as a motion picture.

Then the people who crossed over get the feeling that what they are looking at on the screens is a re-enactment of the Universe as it actually is: TV. That idea must blow their minds.

And the program playing has a "female" characteristic that continually expands and contracts, over and over again, for no real reason that they can discern. (We have come to understand this female characteristic as Gaia...)

Another common thread between their experiences is what they describe as a preponderance of "love," for lack of a better word.

It is why I said in my previous post that the feelings we generate toward each other are the only things that are truly real. Ask me why it is that love is the glue to the Universe and I will tell you that I have no idea. It is what it is, to rehash a silly phrase.

However, the reasons it is may be beyond me but I am sure I will understand when I get there. In the meantime, I'll create as much love as I can so that maybe one day, I don't have to do this crap again!

My republican congressman wrote about how he has been working to fix SSI so that it includes Canada and Mexico. Don't bother writing these deranged lunatics about the disaster they created. They voted for it, thats all you need to know.

"The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is weighing whether it should take on a role in helping Americans manage the $19.4 trillion they have put into retirement savings, a move that would be the agency’s first foray into consumer investments.

The bureau’s core concern is that many Americans, notably those from the retiring Baby Boom generation, may fall prey to financial scams, according to three people briefed on the CFPB’s deliberations who asked not to be named because the matter is still under discussion."

Cable is now piercing through its 28-week moving average on a very strong candle. There may be some consolidation at the beginning of next week but it looks to be filling the lower portion of a Weekly wedge set from its lows of exactly four years ago today.

A break on the Weekly through the trendline at 1.56 could send GBPUSD further down to 1.54, though this seems unlikely. That level has seen very strong support in the recent past and a bounce higher off the trendline has a much greater probability.

It is more likely that the pair will continue to bounce in the wedge until it runs out of room, which could give a tremendous upside October surprise. Watch for Fibo resistance at 1.57.

:D

Addo: The UJ seems to be trading as a mirror image of the GU. Take that for what it is worth.

Ît has nothing to do with Obama and the democrats. I feel they are both worth all the opprobrium you can give them but the problem derives from the transition from a democratic republic to an authoritarian fascist state.

Immigration and SSI? LOL. Trying to help a desparate Republican party to re-load with some bogus wedge issues? LOL. The "Rove" years are over and the Republican party with it. Immigration and SSI aren't going anywhere. The Republicans are going. Good riddance.

You probably said the same thing at the end of Clinton's administration as well and thought Gore and or Kerry would slide right in. Both parties are guilty of arrogance, thievery, abuse of power etc... and when they get cocky espousing the death of the other party. When that happens then it is a fair sign that the light at the end of the tunnel is actually an oncoming train. Take for granted at your own peril that an opposing party is dead and no challengers will be had. Hell, look what happened to Hillary. She fell victim to the same disease. In the beginning of that race it was hers to lose and no one had even heard of Barak Obama outside of Chicago and he certainly wasn't viewed as a threat to her obvious coronation.

Gore did the same thing with Bush. Oh yeah I know there will be those shouts of Bush stole the election but I might add that the election should have never been close enough to steal yet Gore screwed the pooch out of arrogance and in fact ignorance.

So go ahead, take your eye off the ball, shit on about half of the americans, governing for only the "progressives" arrogantly assuming that the rest of America doesn't count and you can do what you want, when you want. That's the signal of a deathnell alright but it won't be to your opposition. The TAPS you hear will be of the party in power, not the one out of it.

thank god or as he is known to the pussy theives called democrats , the party that was supposed to be for liberty is no more. long live his gentle murdering son , obama...i am waiting for all these statist assholes on the front line...be seeing you

there is nothing but unemployment for most... but he is black so stfu.....

the last paragrah in article says the solution, STOP SENDING SS MONEY TO OVERSEAS ACCOUNTS, ASSHOLES WANT TO TAKE FROM THE US THEY NEED TO STAY HERE AND SPEND IT. You dont like it stop trying to game the system.

I once brought up here (Zero Hedge) that illegal workers with fake SS numbers are paying into the system and are not able to withdraw from the system (was I mistaken?). I assume a lot more is paid into the system than is taken out.

They pay:

Property taxes [rent]

Gas tax

Sales tax

Etc., etc., etc.

I got thrown into the wood chipper from fellow Zero Hedgers and got a million down arrows.

Someone used my SSN. The IRS made me pay their taxes + penalties. To get a legal resolution would have cost more than the damage and wasted time better spent curing the disease. The government gives a tremendous amount of aid to legal immigrants as well, programs for which destitute Americans do not qualify. You will pay, round eye! No choice!

The rule on SS is that one must work a minimum of 40 quarters (ten years) to become eligible. Most illegal workers do not work in the US (even with fake SSNs) for this long.

Hmmm....find a fake SS# that has 5...6...8 years of contributions tied to it but has since gone cold. Start contributing using that same#, and after 5, 4 or 2 years, move out of the country and start collecting.